


if i had you, why would i look elsewhere

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, also bash in a kilt, bash in scotland with mary, because hello YUM, i needed this okay, just imagine scotland and bash, loving her, supporting her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 03:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: Bash followed Mary to Scotland after Francis's death. He is restrained with her, never pushing his affections on her, but simply standing by her and being supportive, however she needs it. She appreciates it, until one day, she doesn't.





	if i had you, why would i look elsewhere

He had said he would stay with her - fervently, without any hope of love from her, repeatedly - and he had. Bash had been the one constant at her side in a world tilted on its axis. She had felt the warmth of his body behind her as she walked, somber and broken, behind Francis’s funeral procession, wishing only that she could be buried that day as well. (In truth, a part of her had been. There was a part of her that - no matter how and if she loved again - would remain cold, dead and numb.) He had joined her to beg for Lord Castleroy to rejoin with Greer, had looked on, fondly affectionate as she wiped away tears at their second chance at love, at happiness. At children. Then, he had surprised her one final time, just before their ship left for England, saying that he would stay by her side no matter the cost, no matter the place. 

Where you are, I am home, his eyes said - and though her heart, ker-thumping almost reluctantly in her chest, did not return his love, she was grateful for the companionship of the one true friend from French court that remained to her. Her ladies were gone, her love was gone, even the memory of their once betrothal and hesitant kisses were near gone. 

Sometimes, when she can’t sleep and lays awake staring at the stars above, wrapping the quilts tighter around her against the chill of the Highland winds, she wonders what would have happened if it had been Bash she was destined for, all along. If he had been her original betrothed, and Francis his bastard brother… 

Her eyes searched for him, almost unthinkingly, as she sat upon her well-deserved throne, ready to hear the pleas of her people. The seat was lonely, chilled and uncomfortable - her bones already ached in preparation for the long day - but it was hers and she was finally, finally here, in Scotland, ready to rule. Ready to reign. 

The Scottish, it turns out, did not care for Mary as a Queen without a King Consort any more than England appeared to care for the idea of her cousin. She set her jaw and took each challenge grimly, with a firm voice that brooked no room for disagreement. Still, she saw them mutter to themselves as they left the room. What can a woman do, they asked, on her own? Does she have any real power, any real knowledge, that isn’t provided by a husband, a father, a brother? 

It took everything she had not to throw something across the room. Her crown, perhaps. It was heavy and available and - 

she caught Bash’s eye as his mouth twisted sideways in a wry grin. He knew what she was thinking. More? He’d help her throw things. She remembered that her mother had told her what trouble Sebastian was and she couldn’t help thinking that she may have been right. At least, for the moment, he was just what she needed to calm her rage to a mere simmer. 

Day after day, Bash was there, standing steady in the shadows at the back of the room, offering raised eyebrows and encouraging smiles and once, a barely concealed chuckle that he attempted to turn into a cough. It took all of her courtly training to maintain her composure - though she shook in peals of laughter later that evening. 

“I couldn't believe he - “ 

“ - would ask such a thing!” Bash finished, good-naturedly, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. He was seated across from her in her sitting room, drinking an ale as she sipped on mulled wine, wrapping her quilt around her shoulders, giggling in a carefree manner that she had never thought would come naturally to her again. 

A quiet came over them both. He set down his glass and looked at her, steadily. Bash was always steady, calm, composed - and sometimes she hated him for it. She wanted to rile and rage and throw things and implode in a manner most unbecoming a queen - and these long days of maintaining her front were beginning to take their toll. 

“Francis,” he said, with just a hint of a question in his voice, blue eyes clear as they focused on her. 

She brushed a loose curl back off her face and nodded, staring into the crackling fire in front of them. It had been two years since his death - and she still sometimes turned over her shoulder, expecting him to be there. Still imagined his hand on the small of her back, his kisses on her neck, his grinning face on their wedding day. She imagined him here, besides her, laughing with her and Bash by the fire, little ones dashing around their feet. 

She could feel Bash’s gaze on her, but did not turn. 

“Mary, he would be so proud of you,” he murmured, affection and pride colouring his voice, and she could just see a blush creeping up around his ears out of the corner of her eye. She nodded slowly, finally turning to him and placing a hand lightly on his arm. 

“I am glad you are here in Scotland with me - it is like having a piece of him.” Any other man would have been furious and jealous and hurt. Bash understood what she meant, and how it did not mean she treasured him being there - just as Bash - any less. 

“Where you go, I will go, Mary.” He raised his ale to her in a toast, almost in jest, as if trying to negate the seriousness of his words, and their implications. Where you stay, I will stay. The embers of his love burnt quietly in the background of his eyes, smoldering under the cerulean blue. She was grateful for their warmth, even if she did not return their heat. 

They spent their days together, becoming accustomed to the Scottish court as she had once acclimated to the French court, feeling much safer with her people. Even so, they seemed unfamiliar to her, their accents slightly strange and exotic. Years of living under Catherine de Medici had taught her to fear scheming from her fellow man - and yet, six months, a year, two years passed with hardly a whisper of a threat from within her own court. 

And through it all, Bash remained by her side. She had stayed, and so had he - it was elegant in its simplicity. Slowly, day by day, she came to not only appreciate and be grateful for his presence, but to look for him when he wasn’t there, to seek his counsel on a difficult decision, to anticipate tucking her hand in his arm to walk from dinner to dancing. His touch no longer surprised her, though he was careful, as they moved and danced and dined, never to touch her longer than appropriate, never to let his fingers linger on her waist, or to move across her hair. 

He was restrained, with her, and she had appreciated it. Until she didn’t.

Once, when they had both had a little too much ale and were laughing, uproariously, as he escorted her safely back to her rooms, he had paused and looked at her with eyes burning with desire, so strong that it lit a fire within her own. His eyes had followed the flush that progressed up from her collarbone to her cheeks to meet her eyes, full of challenge and wanting and - they reached her door. He gently kissed her forehead, being careful not to touch her any more than that, and turned around abruptly. She shivered, feeling the heat from his lips linger, traversing its way down her body. That was the first night she dreamt of him. That was not the last night she dreamt of him.

She took up the habit of riding in the afternoons, just after court convened, allowing her hair to whip in her face as they galloped across the hills at breakneck speed. Her advisers, her brother, her serving girls hated it (she felt as if she could feel the ghost of her mother’s disapproval lingering in the halls each time she rushed to the stables) but it was her only way to stay sane. She was almost always alone, at her repeated insistence, riding astride as she had in her childhood, not in the prissy manner of the French court. 

It was the only time of the day she felt the weight of the crown lift off her shoulders, even if for a moment, legs wrapped around the solid weight of her mount, skirts flying behind her, feeling as if she was flying. Though her path varied, her destination remained the same - a small cliff overlooking a lach, resplendent - with dappled sunshine covering the wildflowers that grew despite the weather’s wishes, blooming fiercely amidst gales and tempests. She rode even on those days - getting soaked to the bone in the wind and the rain, anticipating the soft pleasure of a warm bath when she returned. Besides, what is rain, to a queen? She had weathered many a storm before this, and would weather whatever was to come. She would let her horse graze on the grasses, stand on the cliff and feel the wind whip her hair, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. 

Though the people knew she rode, no one quite knew where - and she tried her best to keep it that way, relishing the one time of day no one knew where she was, who she was, and she was allowed to be just… Mary. Riding up to her favourite place, the wind on her heels and a joyous laugh in her throat, she was surprised to see a horse already tethered, and a figure standing. Rearing up her horse, she cautiously approached - his outfit did not look to be English, but nor did it look entirely Scottish, somehow. The sword strapped at his waist was foreboding, but most every man in Scotland carried some type of weapon, be it dagger or broadsword or a bow. She herself had a dagger strapped to her thigh, and another one in a secret pocket of her bodice.

When he turned, impish smile on his lips, she sighed in relief - Bash, of course. 

“Bash!” she called out, swinging her leg to dismount from her horse, agile from years of training, wiping the sweat from her brow and hair back off her face. She nuzzled her face against her mount’s, offering an apple from her saddlebag before looking towards Bash. “What are you doing here?” 

“You disappear every day for hours before dinner.” He quirked an eyebrow at her before turning to face the churning water, crossing his arms as he admired the view. “I suppose I wanted to see what so captured your attention.” 

“It’s my favourite spot in the world - I used to come here when I was just a little girl,” she explained, smiling fondly at the memories as she came to stand next to him. The view was rather spectacular, but it was more than that - it was invigorating, refreshing, and something totally separate from her life in France, something totally wild and fierce and proud, something Scottish and wonderful.

She eyed Bash out of the corner of her eye - admiring his outfit that seemed to be almost entirely Scottish, kilt and all, but lacking a few minor tidbits that she wouldn’t have noticed were it not for being Scottish royalty herself. A family crest, for one, pinned upon his shoulder. She winced, thinking of Bash here, all alone, no family to speak of here or anywhere. She was all he had left, as he was all she had left. 

The outfit suited him, she decided, perusing his form once more with an unintentionally languorous gaze - stopping short once she met his amused bluer-than-the-sky eyes. She blushed and averted her eyes, nearly stuttering as she told him she thought the outfit suited him, though she couldn’t imagine why it flustered her so. 

Because it did, and well, for that matter. It was a wonder he hadn’t been snatched up by some lady at court, roguish bastard that he was. When she told him so, teasing, he chuckled once, cheeks reddening in embarrassment and said nothing. 

“So there is some lady at court that’s caught your eye! I should have guessed none of them could resist your charm for too long.” She elbowed him gently in the side as she teased, laughing lightly at the wry smile toying at his lips. 

In the back of her mind, she felt like this was a dangerous conversation - one shouldn’t ask questions that one doesn’t want to know that answers to. She felt like she was getting angry, for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, she felt that she wanted to know this mystery woman that had captured his gaze and destroy her. It was an unwelcome sensation, this tightness in her chest, one that she hadn’t felt since… She tried to wave it off and put some extra lightness in her tone, teasing the poor bastard once more. 

“Tell me her name, Bash, and I’ll do my best to set things up, straight away.”   
He sighed, once, then turned to face her, arms crossed stoically across his broad chest. “Mary.” 

“Yes?” she inquired, turning over her shoulder to look at him, his mischievous eyes turned suddenly serious and intense. He shook his head slowly, as she gave him a bemused smile. 

“Mary,” he said again. 

Her eyes narrowed, then widened suddenly. The tight knot in her chest wound around her heart even tighter - she swore she could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips, in her toes, in her stomach. The side of his mouth quirked up in a faint smirk as he recognised the comprehension in her eyes, and perhaps the intermingled fear and excitement, but it faded quickly. 

“Mary,” he began, sighing and running his hand through his hair, “you know how I feel, and you know that I will never ask for anything in return. Except this.” He looked at her seriously, taking her hands in his - she could feel his warmth through her gloves. “Do not try to set me up with some woman at court, or tease me about who I love. Not when you know the truth.” 

He released her hands and carefully turned to face the view once more. His pose was casual, full of self-control and restraint and a quiet dignity that comes with unrequited love. He burned for her and he would die for her and that that was the end of it. 

The words were spilling out of her mouth before she had the chance to think them over, to bring them back, to reel back in the words that could break her heart. “I know your truth, yes, but have you asked mine?” 

His head snapped up to stare at her, eyes bright and uncertain. He seemed to stumble and trip over his words for the first time since they had come to Scotland. “I… I did not dare to ask, when I thought I knew.” In his voice was a quiet question. She noted, briefly, that his knuckles were white where they braced against his crossed arms. 

She faced him, standing so close she could see the burning burning burning of his eyes, and took one of his hands in her own. She brought it up to cradle her cheek, gazing up at the man in front of her, who seemed nearly unaffected by her touch, her closeness. His eyes were bright but his mouth was a thin line, pressed tightly together, and he held his body as still as an oak tree. 

Mary hated it, hated his self-control, how he was so self-contained when it felt like she was about to fly apart at the seams. Her hair whipped wildly in the wind as she pressed her lips against his palm, eyes daring him to do something, anything. 

“Ask me,” her voice was rough and low, as if she had gone years without opening her mouth to speak. “Ask me if some man at court has caught my eye.” 

He stood still, unmoving, eyes fixed on her lips, a caution and prescient wounding present in his eyes. She waited, kissed his palm once more, and tried again. 

“Ask me his name.” She stepped closer, cautiously. Though she knew how he felt, did she, really? Perhaps he had been holding onto a dream and when she stepped in front of him, he realised it was the dream he loved and not the girl. Perhaps - 

“Mary… tell me his name.” His gravely tones cascaded over her, rough and unpolished and filled with the low thrum of a careful desire. 

She inhaled, smiled, and breathed out, in an almost-whisper — “Bash.” 

His hand reached to cradle her face, hesitantly, carefully, holding the rest of his body still but she could feel the tension humming in his bloodstream, could feel his pulse racing through his palm. When she didn’t move away - not even in the slightest - he traced his thumb across her bottom lip, and sighed like a man who has been lost in the desert for years, and she was his saving stream. 

He brought his arm to the small of her back, nearly crushing her as he brought her in for a searing, heart-stopping kiss, pressing her body into his as he lost himself in her. His lips moved against hers as a man intent on devouring her, inhaling her moans greedily as his hand wrapped itself in her hair, losing himself in the feel of her, the taste of her, and she was consumed by him. 

Finally, she thought, before she stopped really thinking at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I have loved them since they almost got married and I don't care about historical accuracy, I just want her to be happy, okay? And also with Bash. This is my own catharsis. Thanks for reading!


End file.
